


I thought we had all the time in the world

by sherlock221Bismymuse



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Feels, M/M, TRF spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 10:17:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18179327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlock221Bismymuse/pseuds/sherlock221Bismymuse
Summary: Back story:Sherlock and Greg established relationship. Very early days.Then Moriarty bursts into the scene and Sherlock Falls.Greg blames himself for not realizing it was going to happen and for not being able to prevent it.





	I thought we had all the time in the world

**Author's Note:**

> Marcel Proust: “But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more immaterial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”

Greg wanders through the streets and alleys of London in search of lost time.

He stands too long in front of a busker at Tottenham Court Road station who is playing a violin. He has never heard anyone play as beautifully as Sherlock but then those memories of the violin are not alone and in isolation. They are tangled up inseparably from the knowledge that it was Sherlock playing. They were his fingers on the bow and string, his hands holding the instrument, his lips parted in a small smile, his eyes closed inside the sanctuary of notes. The incandescent light coming in from the window where he stood, as the faint smell of seeping tea wafted from the kitchen. A far away rumbling of cars on the street. The sound of Mrs Hudson vacuuming.

They were all tied up in a bundle as one cohesive memory. He could not pull out one strand without unravelling the entire lot.

He suddenly felt stiff from standing for so long, came to with a start, slipped a few coins in the empty violin case for the busker and slowly walked to the train.

********************

Yesterday he had gone to the alley where they had been for their last stakeout.

At the time of course he had no idea it would be the last stakeout. That he could stand so close to Sherlock, almost trapped by his body behind that damp wall as they waited for a suspect to emerge. He stood now and looked at the wall. The innocuous, still damp, utterly meaningless wall.

Except that Greg could see clear as day two men standing there, close enough to feel each other’s body warmth. Looking at each other with half a smile, just inches separating their lips, filled with that curious amalgam of joy and adrenaline at the potential danger and the thrill of seeing justice done. He could smell the faint tobacco, shampoo, detergent and sweat. He went closer and touched the wall, as though by doing so he could reach back in time and touch the younger man, hold him closer, maybe even kiss him while he could.

Before everything was lost and there were no more chances left.

**********************

Last week when he had gone to the Scotland Yard offices and stood on the pavement across, waiting to cross, he saw himself and Sherlock, climbing up the steps, the younger man in the dramatic coat, hands in pockets from the cold, their speech visible as vapours. He could smell the unique smell that was so Sherlock. Smoke, chemicals, wool, shampoo, some kind of cologne. London.

He had always thought that his Consulting Detective smelt of London.

Then Sherlock had turned and said something which had made him laugh and shake his head and his lover had looked a bit smug as he always did when he made Greg laugh.

 _You are mine and I make you happy_ the look seemed to convey now in retrospect.

_Could he have done anything more to stop him from jumping?_

The stripping of his rank, the humiliation, the media madness…..nothing had come even close to hurting him as much as the fact that he had missed the signs.

_What kind of a detective am I that I did not realize he was going to kill himself??_

And even worse was the question he asked himself every night when he could not fall asleep or would wake up in a terror- fueled sweat soaked body where his conscience would ask him _—what kind of lover were you that he did this on your watch?_

*************************

Some days ago he had gone round the corner from the Chinese place from they ordered Sherlock’s favourite take-away.

He saw people walking towards it and out from it. Some were carrying takeaway parcels, some couples were walking hand in hand.

Greg stood there with tears falling down his cheeks, the taste of the food fresh on his tongue, as Sherlock fed him with chopsticks, laughing at his inability to use them.

The smell of that fortune cookie which Sherlock had cracked open and read _“_ _Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the conquest of it.”_

Sherlock had waggled his eyebrows at him, referring to the fierce argument they had had about the earlier day about Sherlock running behind a suspect.

Greg had fumed but kept his cool at the Yard, since they were keeping their new relationship quiet.

But once they got home Greg had almost ripped into him, fury and fear making for an explosive combination.

“For god’s sake Sherlock!!” Greg had said. “There is very fine line between courage and foolhardiness and you keep dancing on either side of that line a bit too closely for my liking.”

Sherlock had heard him out and finally just held him and said “Sorry. I will try not to do that again.”

“You will try Sherlock?” Greg had asked in despair. “That is not good enough love. You are too precious to lose for the sake of some idiot criminal!”

“Hmm…..maybe I should stop working with you if there is going to be a conflict of interest?” Sherlock had asked only half joking and been fully prepared to be pushed against the wall and kissed till he thought his lungs would explode.

As they broke apart Sherlock gave him a wolfish smile and said. “I really hope you don’t conduct your usual interrogations in this manner Detective Inspector.”

Greg smiled at the memory . T _he bastard. Always had to have the last word didn’t he?!_

_Come back Sherlock! Please. Have all the last words you want. Just talk. Non-stop. Tell me all your deductions and ideas and every crazy thought that passes through your brilliant mind. Just don’t leave me alone here, in this silence._

Greg’s fortune cookie that day had said ‘A ship in harbour is safe, but that’s not why ships are built.’

“Fuck.” Greg had said in exasperation. “Do you know the cook here?? Are you using bloody fortune cookies to send me messages?”

Then he had watched Sherlock laugh and proceed to steal almost all of his noodles after having said he wasn’t hungry.

**************************

Greg went to Tesco and stared at the shelves full of things. Milk. They were always out of milk at his flat now that Sherlock had started staying over more often. Greg used to joke about needing to retire to the country side and keeping a cow.

“You don’t take milk in your coffee. What the bloody hell do you do with it then?” Greg had asked once.

Sherlock had just answered in a distracted way while reading a book, sprawled all over his sofa.

“I drink it of course Gregory. You should consider become a detective. Amazing deduction skills.”

He had looked surprised when Greg had pelted him with every cushion at his disposal.

The very taste of milk made Greg sick now.

He saw the jars of honey on the shelf and right there he could see the table at his flat with the spoon dipped in the pot, smearing the honey on a toast and Sherlock’s hand reaching out for it absently as he typed something on his laptop. No. Greg’s laptop.

And then Greg had snapped at him for getting his keyboard sticky. He should have tossed that laptop on the floor and held Sherlock’s face in his hands and kissed his sticky lips instead.

 _Oh here are the ginger snap biscuits Sherlock liked_. He could hear the wrapper crinkle and then smell the biscuits as his lover ate his way through an entire packet, half distracted, sitting on the sofa watching TV while Greg watched him from the corner of his eye, happy that he was eating.

He ached to cuddle him again, and feed him the biscuits and kiss away the crumbs.

***********************************

He stood near the lane where they had escaped from a chase once and Sherlock had turned to him and said “Here, take my hand.”  He did take his hand then but he should have never let it go.

When they had reached his home after the chase and the surrender, he had just naturally taken Sherlock’s hand again and traced every one of the calluses with his fingers. He had have lifted the hand to his lips and kissed the palm. He had run his fingers up the wrist and slender forearm upto the sinewy biceps.

He had put his own arms around Sherlock’s neck and brought him closer and kissed him, gently and tenderly till they could breathe no more.

He could still feel the warmth of that phantom hand in his as they ran down the lane, and the tug of Sherlock’s arms and the strength of his grip.

But now when looked down at it the emptiness of his own hand it seemed like too heavy a burden to carry.

He had stood there, near the police car, watching Sherlock offer his hand to John and seeing them run away. He had put handcuffs on Sherlock and arrested him just minutes earlier. Exasperated.

Assuming this was one of Sherlock’s usual scrapes and that any minute now a call would come from up high, which meant Mycroft Holmes, and the wheels would be set in motion and Sherlock would be released.

_Who the fuck would believe that utter nonsense about Sherlock being a fake?!_

But they had. And apparently so had Sherlock.

At least that is what he had said to John just before he jumped.

If he lived to be a 100 he would not understand why he did it.

Greg’s blood ran cold at the thought that he really might well live to be a 100 and have to spend that terrible eternity with the knowledge that the love of his life was buried six feet under.

And that he had done nothing to stop that.

 

***********************

Greg smelt a familiar scent in the Tube.

It was like Sherlock’s shampoo but no quite. However it was close enough to remind him of those rare lazy days at home when Sherlock would take a shower and wash his hair and leave the bathroom smelling all posh and foggy. Then he would dry his hair and put some products and perform some elaborate rituals to maintain his curls.

_Now he could never again run his fingers through those curls and get Sherlock to rest his head on his lap while watching TV so he could pat those soft curls and soothe the man whose brain was forever spinning at the speed of light ?_

 

************************

He should have loved him more.

He should have told him so.

Every single moment of every day.

Because it was true.

It was the one great truth of his entire life.

.

.

But he had thought they had all the time in the world.

Until suddenly they had none.

He did not even have the opportunity to try and save him as he fell. No.

That dubious honour had gone to John Watson.

Sherlock had not even called him or left a message.

 

And now all he could do was search endlessly for lost time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is re-purposed from another fic that I wrote simply ages ago :)  
> Hope you enjoy it !  
> The world needs more Sherstrade fics so this is my little contribution !  
> Comments are always welcome!


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